Heaven's Child
by Befanini
Summary: What Sanzo will take to his grave...


**Title: Heaven's Child**

**Author: ****Befanini**

**Summary: **What Sanzo will take to his grave…

**A/N:** Sorry for the angst… It just _begged_ to be written. I tell you that Sanzo himself came to me and stood over my shoulder as I wrote this one down.

* * *

It was easy to forget what he really was. Traveling westward, being together everyday, day in day out, hour after hour of that incessant, insistent, childish whining and _harahetta _and petty fights and annoying scuffles with the equally maddening _erogappa_ – to the whole world, Goku seemed no more than a perpetually hungry brat who could beat demons to a bloody pulp in a nasty fight. But he knew.

Yes, he knew, even before the mysterious, tragic Toushin Taishidescended from Tenkaiin what now seemed to be another lifetime ago… when Homura had challenged and taunted and _taught _the "bakazaru" that he was no mere _youkai,_ that his golden diadem was not meant for ornamentation, that the kid possessed a greater legacy – The Great Legacy, perhaps… _Seiten Taisei Son Goku, _Great Sage Equal To Heaven.

Cho Hakkai… Cho Hakkai he had arrested, then rescued, and redeemed; in effect literally baptizing him into a new life. The green-eyed, soft-spoken, gentle-faced healer with the tragic past and his own power limiters was totally loyal to him. Cho Hakkai would kill for him. He was sure of it.

And as for one incorrigible, irreverent, redheaded rascal of a half-breed, he knew too that this one would kill for him as well. There was no outstanding event that bound them together, as Goku was bound to him after he 'rescued' him from the cave, as Hakkai was bound to him. And perhaps that was what made Sha Gojyo's fierce loyalty and devotion all the more true, all the more honest. Gojyo gave of himself with open hands, no strings attached. Of Gojyo he was certain as well – the Jakujou would kill for him, no questions asked.

But as for Goku… He knew that sometimes people wondered. It was too easy to oversimplify the kid's obsession with him, to demean it into something merely physical. Teenage hormones. That was the general snickering that went around. A lovesick puppy. But that was not it at all. It was too unjust, too simply _unintelligent _to make something so filthy of something so… holy.

Because if people bothered to open their eyes, really open their eyes, they would see… the pure, innocent, childlike, _sacred _devotion that Goku held for him was beyond words and could not be desecrated. It was nothing so simple as "love". It seemed not even to be earthly in origin.

All he knew was, that despite it all, despite dim, half-imagined (half-remembered?) beginnings, to their encounter, how he had felt compelled to seek out the creature rumored to be imprisoned for five hundred years … Throughout their journey, and teaming up with kind Hakkai and fiery Gojyo and all the adventures and quarrels and misunderstandings and challenges and tragedies and good times and fatal times along the way… Despite his frayed nerves and excruciating headaches from Goku and Gojyo's antics, and his annoyance with a sometimes-too-overbearingly-nurturing Hakkai…

He was a lonely lighthouse, the steady beam that they gravitated to, whether willingly or out of necessity – what did it matter. He gathered them, guided them through tempestuous waters, ragged travelers who came to rest their weary heads on his battered shores…

Cho Hakkai: Nobody's Child, the orphan hiding his bloodstained hands behind a quiet smile… Sha Gojyo: Taboo Child, branded by his flaming hair and startling red eyes, concealing his pain behind a bold, devil-may-care attitude… And Son Goku: Earth's Child, born of the aura of centuries-old solid rock, guileless eyes masking the raw, undistilled, savage power that was both his blessing and his curse.

They needed him. Each in his own way. And perhaps… perhaps the monkey most of all. Sometimes it seemed he existed purely as the keeper of two tortured souls… and the guardian of one Great Sage Equal To Heaven. He alone could seal that power. It was his duty. His right. And his burden.

And he knew that Hakkai and Gojyo would kill for him without question… but Son Goku would die for him without hesitation.

-owari-

* * *

Japanese mini-glossary:

Harahetta: I'm hungry

Erogappa: Horny water imp

Toushin Taishi: God of Flame; Fighting God

Youkai: demon

Bakazaru: Stupid monkey


End file.
